Why do they need to dig through all those people? I hear Edward Snowden himself has concluded his most recent assignment at the NSA, and has government experience and a security clearance to boot. My information may be a little out of date, though.

I'm sure there are hundreds of people who are dying to be criminalized without due process and live in Russia just to be an American patriot.

There are thousands who are willing to give their lives for 'the American way of life' so yes, there might be more than you would think willing to sacrifice to protect Americans from their own government.

Snowden, if he just stayed in America, would in all likelihood not have received a fair and impartial trial. Though this is ultimately hypothetical (since he has not submitted himself for arrest), let's set all political bullshitting aside and take an honest assessment of the truth.

His revelations were extremely embarrassing to the most powerful institutions, and the most powerful people, in the American government. He has turned popular American sentiment hostile to the greater part of governance. What

Righteous anger isn't always as Righteous or helpful as you'd originally thought. That's why we have a constitution, bill of rights, etc... To protect us from the whims of an angry fickle public when short term popular opinion may not be in the best interest of the long term health of the country. Amending the constitution takes a long time for a reason. DHS and other 3 letter agencies can only use 9/11 to subjugate us for so long... eventually the fear will fade, and get replaced outrage. History will not

I wish you were right, but suspect you are wrong. The 2nd amendment was essentially abandoned after the Whiskey rebellion highlighted the ineffectiveness of the militias, and the British burning DC to the ground finished it off. They never bothered to repeal it.

1st. Left? What left?2nd. Created under right and the left hated it, extended under left and the right hated it.So you still think you have some say in this?

Only a fool will think that if you do the same thing over and over again, you will get a different result.Voting R one time and D the next time and then R again and back to D is not doing things differently. Building a guilotine and off with their heads if they do not perform as promissed is doing things differently.

1st. Left? What left?2nd. Created under right and the left hated it, extended under left and the right hated it.So you still think you have some say in this?

Only a fool will think that if you do the same thing over and over again, you will get a different result.Voting R one time and D the next time and then R again and back to D is not doing things differently. Building a guilotine and off with their heads if they do not perform as promissed is doing things differently.

Have to wonder how many supporters of anyone other than R and D are going to be on this watchlist.

Why is the reality distortion field so strong that hating the tyrannical government, when a right-winger is in power, gets you branded a "leftist"? When a leftist is in power, you're branded a "right-winger"? I hated the DHS under Bush and I think his administration was an abomination. I hate the DHS under Obama and think his administration is an abomination. When I would say the former, 2002-2008, I was branded as partisan pinko commie leftist scum. When I say the latter 2008-present, I'm branded as a racist redneck partisan 1% loving corporatist scum.

It's really getting tiring. I can't vocalize that I disagree with anything this administration has done without hearing "Well, Bush started it! Where were you when Bush was running over our rights?" I was speaking out against it just like I am now, except back then, they called me you.

I still don't get why we still have this elaborate subsidy for a bunch of glorified mall cops.

Because the American public is ill informed and they do not want to be better informed.

They watch the news and have "facts" spoon fed to them by people with their own agenda.

When a politician actually says, "Hold on here! We need to think about this police state crap!" they are labeled as being "soft on terror" and the public being incapable of having a thought that isn't planted there by the media, goes along. And people are totally afraid because of the irresponsible and incompetent media.

In the article, an AMERICAN of Libyan decent was held without cause by the border thugs. I assure you that many Americans have no problem with that because she is an Arab - who cares what the ramifications are on our society and freedoms. See, we the stupid people only want freedom for people like us. The others can rot in jail.

So, mix in unwarranted fear, bigotry and stupidity and we have the DHS.

They watch the news and have "facts" spoon fed to them by people with their own agenda.

It's actually a little bit worse than that. We could all be spoon-fed "facts" saying the DHS is terrible, and we could all agree it should be dismantled. And then the DHS will politely go about its way while the rest of us do nothing. While we very much enjoy judgmentally shaking our heads at the terrible things that go on in this world, very few people are willing to do anything about it.

Quite the opposite in fact. In my opinion when your government starts making lists of "the bad people" then I think it is your moral duty to make sure you are one of the people on the list. From the recent NSA leaks (this one may not actually be from Snowden, which is interesting) the NSA considers anyone who uses or runs Tor to be an extremist, so apparently I make the list twice; just glad to be doing my part. I also installed PGP and use encryption whenever possible, although that is rare because I on

...and be sure to spread that malware that uses Tor for command and control. Even your elderly neighbour could be a terrorist! Add to the fact that she gives sweets to the kids that come around asking if they can get their ball back from her garden, and you've got a paedo-terrorist. They're the worst kind of all.

Without the FOIA and responsible journalism there is no oversight by the people. If you can't see it, how can you oversee it?. The first amendment is in place, in large part, because freedom of speech is quintessential to the running of a fair process. Journalism is the "fourth branch" of government, and by not responding legally and appropriately to the FOIA requests the DHS is both acknowleging this and circumventing the well established process. So saying "Every single government department that has

The problem has become so severe that nothing short of an Edward Snowden-style leak may be needed to increase transparency at the DHS.

Such a leak is just as likely to have exactly the opposite effect. The Snowden leak hasn't exactly made the NSA any more forthcoming regarding their activities. No, the ONLY thing that is going to force DHS to be more transparent in the long run is a motivated Congress. Oversight of the executive branch is after all their job. But since the Dems and Reps are so busy trying to grab power they can't be bothered. The judiciary is no help since they have their head stuck in the sand over standing [wikipedia.org] that they are worse than useless. So the executive branch can do whatever the hell they like without consequence until at least one of the other branches of government starts doing their damn job. All a leak is likely to do is show them what they need to do the be even less transparent than they already are.

The whole point of being the secret police is that they're the SECRET fucking police. We've allowed literally half of the government agencies to be consolidated under one uber-agency whose charter is some nebulous bullshit about "keeping the fatherland safe". And then people are SURPRISED when it follows the example of the Gestapo and the KGB.

The simple way to fix this is just shut the DHS down. It was a bureaucracy conceived in panic: poorly engineered and even more poorly implemented. Just shut it down. Turn all the records over to Congress and start over.

Homeland Security is an institution based in FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The more they panic the populace the more Congress will capitulate and grant them ever increasing power and funding. Secrecy grants them a shield to deflect all criticism: in the event of an attack they can simply state they were underfunded or were not granted the powers they needed to protect the people regardless of whatever the truth may be and no one except initiated would be the wiser. Instead of confronting terrorism usin

The problem here is that we need Congress to amend the Freedom of Information Act. DHS can hide the way they do because they can claim a "national security" exemption to FOIA - one of the very few things (apart from ongoing criminal investigations and ongoing collective bargaining, among a handful of others) that can be used to block a FOIA request. The national security exemption also tends to be the most often abused, especially by police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A lot of the time, the agencies know they won't win when the people requesting the records appeal, but it's a handy way to stonewall records requests right out of the gate.

What should happen is that FOIA should be amended to make it clear when the national security exemption does and does not apply, so that it can't be used to hide behind anymore.

this is the do everything forever department created after september 2001 and designed to be an intractable part of the amorphous war on terror. to date its various wings includeU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: so bogged down by congress it can barely stock the staplers and ink the stamp padsU.S. Customs and Border Protection: charged with manning our immigration checkpoints that exist, paradoxically, nearly 100 miles inside our borders as well as directly upon them. congress pumps money into these guys, who cant seem to go more than a week without accidentally killing someone across the border.Federal Emergency Management Agency: home of "secret death camps" for rabid neo-conservatives, and for the rest of us a red flag which completely exposed the bumbling incompetence of the DHS after Hurricane Katrina. their latest campaign has been telling people through billboards about the need to make an emergency plan. As if to tacitly admit theyre just as inept and meaningless as they were 9 years agoU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: packs undocumented immigrants into shanty camps, and really thats about it. Completely neutered after NAFTA for its customs enforcement, and just as paralyzed by congress. Arizona mistakenly began shipping their "illegals" to ICE facilities only to find ICE released them, as it isnt a magic button to get the sheriff re-elected.Transportation Security Administration home of the freedom grope, these guys are highschool drop outs and police academy rejects itching for a reason to ruin your summer.U.S. Coast Guard there is no conceiveable reason this agency should not be under control of the pentagon, or something more relevant to its mission, but this is the seventh department its been reassigned to since its creation and like the fat kid in gym class, it probably wont be very permanent.National Protection and Programs Directorate purportedly does something with "cybersecurity" but its amorphous enough to land firmly in the camp of cabinet level private toilets designed to pitch federal tax dollars into. mostly a 2.5 billion dollar per year dole for government contractors.U.S. Secret Service they guard the president and for some mind boggling reason, investigate counterfeit currency.

TL;DR: the DHS was designed with no one particular in mind. the first thing our president told us after 9/11 was to "go shopping" and in order to bolster that order from the commander in chief, the consumer confidence index in 2001 got its own department into which lands of home would ostensibly become secure as if by magic. its scope is so broadly defined and its mission so incongruent that it cannot possibly function in any meaningful fashion. Its not off-the-map like the NSA, rather, its largesse makes it incapable of escaping scrutiny.

U.S. Coast Guard there is no conceiveable reason this agency should not be under control of the pentagon...

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the U.S. armed forces from enforcing the law. That is why the National Guard is normally under the command of a State Governor and the Coast Guard is normally under the command of a civilian agency. When under such command they are not considered part of the U.S. armed forces and a Governor can have the state National Guard units enforce the law, for example during natural disasters, riots, etc. Similarly when under civilian command the Coast Guard can enforce maritime law, enforce safety regulations, arrest smugglers, etc.

"U.S. Secret Service they guard the president and for some mind boggling reason, investigate counterfeit currency. "

No, they investigate counterfeit currency and for an accidental reason guard the president. At the time that Congress requested a protection detail for the President, the Secret Service was the largest law enforcement agency at the federal level. The FBI had not yet been created.

Let me get this straight; because this article is making my mind blow..... When Mr Snowden did what he did, the comments here on Slashdot both hailed him as hero and decried him as a traitor. This is still unresolved.

And now we're saying that we NEED to have a Snowden-style event to have any kind of transparency at DHS? So, Americans need to give up their Hawaiian gymnast girlfriends, go on the lam, be hunted by every three-letter agency, have to move to Russia, have a price put on their heads, and still be hated by 50% of America who'd want to thrown them in a deep dark hole for the rest of their lives without a trial..... All so *you* can have some nice "transparency" at the DHS?????

Sorry, but if that's what's required, PLEASE NOW ADMIT THAT AMERICA IS A FASCIST POLICE STATE, and that if the price of freedom is so high that most people aren't willing to give up everything for that freedom, we have become land of the sheep.

Also, if you feel that's what's required; do it yourself; or start a revolution to take your country back from the oligarchs that have made into a greedy-self-serving-piece-of-shit-excuse for a nation. Mr Snowdens are few and far between and you're lucky to have the ones you have.

Businesses are so intertwined internationally that it is virtually impossible to start a war with anyone without offending at least half the businesses in your country. And that's something no government on this planet can afford.

You all remember the recent smallpox discovery at the NIH... well it turns out they found quite a number of samples of various other things, and their disposition was somewhat odd: some of them went to the FDA, the CDC, or were destroyed, but a number of samples (they didn't say what) were sent to Homeland Security.

WTF?!

What possible business can H.S. have with vials of deadly diseases?

'The original smallpox samples, along with ten others that were unclearly labeled, were securely transferred to the CDC’s high-containment facility in Atlanta., the FDA said, and 32 other vials have already been destroyed. The remaining 279 were transferred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Bioforensic Analysis Center “for safeguarding.”'

We need direct action to dismantle the Fascist regime presently in power by eradicating the NSA and the TSA, returning the FBI to Law Enforcement, charging the members of Congress found to be conducting rampant Insider Trading with Federal Charges rather than giving them a pass and revoking the Patriot Act.
Until then, it doesn't matter if we have 1,000 Snowdens, because it wont mean jack shit beyond tabloid fodder.

Most of the US states need one... most of the departments in those states need them... Many major and even minor cities need them.

Whistleblowing and leaking should become a core part of our democracy. Yes, government must keep some things secret... like your identity info so assholes aren't stealing your ID every two seconds to rob you. Or national security secrets like the plans to the latest hydrogen bomb. By all means keep those secrets.

Sounds like you think that secrecy which is used to commit outright crimes in your name, is needed.

Here's an idea. I'm going to punch you square in the face. Then I'm going to make it illegal to tell anyone about it, because it would harm my reputation and my professional job is to be the head of a big governmental agency.

But if that agency knew I punched you square in the face, I'd get publicly in trouble, which would make my agency look bad, which would cut their funding, which would mean they cannot protect people as well, thus my punching you in the face will be kept secret in the name of national security.

Forget the fact I'm not supposed to be punching you in the first place...... what matters is now that I *have* punched you in the face, we need to all keep super secret about it or else my agency would look bad.

People during WW2 who dared to help those that were prosecuted for no other crime than being who they are were living in constant danger. Not just of being arrested or inconvenienced, but of being killed. Along with their family. Still, people did just that. By far not many, but surprisingly many. They sure as hell could not hope for fame and glory (especially during the first years when it sure looked like Germany would win that war), actually all they could expect

Years ago I asked my uncle, who was a teenager during WW2, if he knew of people in our village that had hidden refugees during the war. As you mentioned, this was a very dangerous thing to do. He had to think long and hard, but managed to remember two or three families. Next I asked him if he knew about young men who had gone to fight on the German side. He immediately named about a dozen, but added that most did so because the pay was good and some simply went because they would get enough decent food to eat. At that moment I had the sad realization that those who would oppress us if they could, are living quietly among us. They live in every street, everywhere. As soon as an opportunity like WW2 arises, they will jump in and become the oppressors. But heroes are a lot harder to find.